Book reviews: The Press Gang In Orkney And Shetland | Sir Gilbert’s Children | Boyling Point 2

By MICHAEL KERRIGAN
Published on Saturday 28 January 2012 00:00

Michael Kerrigan casts his eye on the rest of this week’s literature releases

The Press Gang in Orkney and Shetland

by JDM Robertson

Rating: ****

(The Orcadian, £25)

A colourful footnote in British history, the press gang looms larger in the stories of our seaport cities: in Orkney and Shetland, though, it was a truly decisive force. For a century and a half, from the Second Dutch War to the Napoleonic era, the fact (and fear) of impressment, by army and navy, had a deeply damaging, demographic impact on tiny island communities. Their young men were abducted to spend years far from home, fighting foes who could hardly have seemed any more “foreign” to them than their English comrades. JDM Robertson has researched the subject systematically, unearthing fascinating documents which show how impressment affected individuals, families and communities. Beautifully illustrated, this book really does its author – and its subject – proud.

Sir Gilbert’s Children

by Harriet Miller Davidson

Rating: ****

(For the Right Reasons, £4.50)

Just a teenager when she wrote this engaging tale, Harriet Miller Davidson lived with her family in Shrub Mount, Portobello: we read their real life here, only thinly fictionalised. Thrill-seekers will have to look elsewhere: the novella’s climax comes with a storm that sets the house shaking. They sing a hymn, then “she crept back to bed, and slept soundly till morning”. The story’s appeal is its innocence: this early-Victorian idyll brings back not just a vanished Edinburgh but the freshness of childhood.

Boyling Point 2

by Robert Boyle

Rating: ****

(Argyll, £8.99)

From Tony Blair’s first confession as a Catholic to the News of the World’s last issue; from benefit fraud to MPs’ expenses; a glorious tapestry of Scottish, British and international political life is unfolded here. So hard-hitting on occasion that he makes you wince, the Evening News’s cartoonist can still be relied upon to find a bright side: Edinburgh may be trounced by Amsterdam, Vienna, Milan and Manchester in the tram-development Champions’ League, but Scotland walks away with the title of the heaviest-drinking part of the UK. Salmond-spotters especially will have a field day. Our revered First Minister appears here as His Holiness Pope Benedict, a busty Murdoch-model, Brian Souter’s bus-driver, one half of Jedward and many more.

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